 Dr. Edric Baker is a New Zealander who qualified as a medical doctor in the mid 1960s. At that time the Vietnam war was building up. In 1968 Edric volunteered to work with the NZ Surgical Team in Qhi Nhon, the provincial capital of Binh Dinh Province in (then) South Vietnam. The Surgical Team worked at the Province Hospital and attended to civilian casualties.
He recalls his first lesson: “After several hours of traumatic war surgery on a patient who made full recovery, I saw him come back three months later to die of dysentery. That was the first step in my awakening.”
From the NZ Surgical team, Edric transferred to a highlands mission hospital established in Kontum by Dr. Pat Smith. This served the ethnic minority hill tribe people known as the Montagnards.
Kontum, near the Ho Chi Minh trail, was a volatile part of the country and at times the expatriate hospital staff were evacuated out. On returning after one of these occasions, Edric was struck by how the local (totally untrained) staff had managed to keep the hospital running. This awoke in him a vision of health services for the poor by the poor.
Here he was challenged to think about provision of health services for the poor and the marginalised. He became very aware that for the poor in most countries health services do not exist.
The situation deteriorated in the Vietnam highlands and Edric was detained for four months. He may well have spent the rest of his life in Vietnam had he not been deported by the communists after this imprisonment. He set about equipping himself for a lifetime of service to the poor. Over the next few years he obtained Diplomas in Tropical Medicine, Tropical Child Health and Obstetrics. He obtained tropical experience by working in hospitals in Papua New Guinea and Zambia.
By the early 1980s he was ready to embark on what has turned out to be his life’s work: developing health services for the poor, by the poor. In 1983 he went to Bangladesh, one of the most desperately poor nations on earth. Under the auspices of the Church of Bangladesh he went to Thanabaird in the remote North of the country. Here, starting from scratch, he taught literacy and numeracy before training local people to become “barefoot medics” for the Church Clinic.
Through a mix of formal training and learning by doing, the Thanabaird clinic was built up to a staff of 55 by the year 2000. Of these only two had been to high school. The programme was dealing with 16,000 outpatients and some 700 inpatients a year. With assistance from volunteer paediatric nurse Libby Laing, village health-workers also provided antenatal care, preventative health, nutrition and family planning services.
A satellite health centre was established some five km away at Kailakuri specialising in services for diabetics and TB. Here Edric was able to put into practice what he had been working towards for many decades. The diabetes programme was managed and run entirely by diabetics. The TB eradication programme was managed and run entirely by persons who either were being cured, or had formerly been afflicted by TB.
In 2006 Edric transferred from the Church of Bangladesh to a local NGO, the Institute of Integrated Rural Development and shifted over to work full time with the Kailakuri Health Centre[1].
Today Kailakuri has a staff of some 78 persons, of whom Edric is the only one with any formal medical qualifications. Everybody else has been trained on the job. All staff take part in weekly training and re-training sessions. Edric is head trainer, consultant and Medical Officer in Charge.
The Centre services a very poor area with a mixed population of Bengali Muslim, indigenous minorities the Mandi (many of whom are Christian) and Borman (Hindu). The basic 2007 ethno-religious statistics were as follows.
It is Edric’s belief that to effectively help the poor you have to fully identify with them. He lives very simply in accommodation, much the same as the rest of the local community, and eats the same food.
Edric Baker is very much a people person. His deep Christian faith has given him a concern for the outcast, the poor, the marginalised. He has skills as a medical Dr. All of these things he has brought together in Kailakuri Health Centre where poor people of different ethnicity and faith harmoniously work together for the good of their community. Prior to involvement with Kailakuri, these different ethnic and religious communities would have had little or nothing to do with each other. Today they work together, inspired by Edric Baker’s selfless example.
Working together as a team in 2007 they achieved the following outcomes:
Outpatient visits (including Diabetes and TB) 25,447 Inpatient Admissions: 921 Mother-Child Health care programme: 14 villages. End of year number of diabetes patients : 892 Number of TB patients successfully treated: 61
All of this was achieved on a budget of around US$110,000.
The medical practices followed are simple, appropriate and cheap. Even so, the poor can not afford to pay for more than 10 or15% of the cost. The more families have to pay for health treatment, the less they have to pay for food, water and sanitation – and the sicker they get. There will always be a need for some external funding.
What is being achieved at Kailakuri is unique.
Historically antagonistic ethnic and religious groups are working together.
Health services are being provided for the poor, by the poor. Kailakuri is managed and operated by the poor.
[1] The Thanabaird clinic continues to operate under the Church of Bangladesh staffed entirely by locally trained personnel. |
